The artificial freezing process of liquids, and the properties and effects of heat and cold

Abstract

On 22 June 1657, just three days after the first formal meeting of the Accademia del Cimento, the academicians were already showing an interest in the effects of heat and cold on water placed in varying conditions and mixed with different substances. During the following two months they suspended any such investigations, preferring instead to concentrate on testing and measuring the weight of air. In September, with great enthusiasm, they returned to their investigations regarding the effects of heat and cold and particularly the freezing process of liquids. The friction that was beginning to show between the group’s mechanists and Aristotelians during their experiments in the field of pneumatics was to escalate once they seriously began to dedicate themselves to this second topic. Indeed, the freezing process of liquids, as well as the properties and effects of heat and cold, were the academicians’ most rigorously explored and debated topics; their experiments in this field came to dominate the Saggi’s pages. Furthermore, as Middleton points out, the published experiments represent only a portion of all the work they carried out on the topic, including the hours that each academician spent negotiating the interpretation and significance of each experiment.